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Topic: A Fast Exit (Read 144715 times)

"She's as naked as a jaybird, though I'll keep my peepers peeled for dog-tags if there are any. Though right now, I'm more concerned with What she is, rather than Who."

Sunny hoisted the limp body onto her shoulder, meanwhile looking around for dog-tags. Unless she's denser than she looks in which case, I'll try dragging. (14:37:05) Minion: Gossamer rullar 1d100 och får 5. (14:37:56) Minion: Gossamer rullar 1d100 och får 83. The first roll is for hoisting her, unless I don't need to roll for that in which case I'll use that one for dog-tag looking, otherwise I guess I missed them.

"I'll be in med-bay, I need to run some samples before and If I'll let sleeping beauty here say nica ta meetcha."

-

Once in med-bay, Sunny put the girl on a slab and looked around for additional tools and supplies she could use, she probably had all she needed for a simple sample, but it never hurt to have extra stuff. (14:47:37) Minion: Gossamer rullar 1d100 och får 45. Hope that's enough.

He picked up a suit repair kit among the debris, and shuddered inwardly from the damage. He knew all about traumatic injuries,having first hand experience with them. It reminded him to turn down his O2. He had been getting light-headed but had hardly noticed it. He took the lase gun and spice, and what wrist comps seemed serviceable.

Autumn snarled at the tingling sensation that still coursed through her body and set her fur on end, the blown primary capacitor still smoking furiously in front of her. if not for my suit I'd have been fried, d**n micro fractures! Apparently the system suffered a surge before someone sliced the cables, figures.

"Stand by for gravity re-initialization." She said over the com, grateful the power surge hadn't fried her suits electronics completely. She braced herself and slowly returned the gravity to normal over the course of several seconds, hoping it wouldn't interrupt the rest of her crews activities at such a gradual power up.

The clicking of the intercom drew her attention, thumbing the button and giving the chimera her best professional look. "Repairs underway captain, gravity online, still working on other systems, please withdraw yourself and other personnel to the crew quarters for safety purposes in the event of feedback or system failures." She turned off the com and switched back to the private channel, "I'll have central control running soon, but I'm going to need your medical services after, Sunny I'm... Not in the best of shape." She clicked off the com and resumed work, choosing to ignore the faint mist of blood from her nostrils hazing the tip of her helmet with every breath.

Work now, rest when I'm dead, if we don't get off this ship soon there won't be a later to worry about.

The thrice-accursed cables were busted, the whole insulated bundle, by a remotely-detonated micro bomb. Sabotage on a professional level, Autumn had to nod. She hummed as she played Cinderella, picking out the right cable from between the cinders, patching it with a salvaged one.

Occasionally, she heard scratching and the tip-tap of clawed feet from the ducts. Some smaller alien apparently called the ventilation system its home. At least the Capt'n didn't fit inside.

Finally, with a satisfying hum, gravity went online as a minimal graviton sheath was erected above and below the ship. A cacophony of noises filled the vessel as all the loose items clattered to the ground. The landlubbers amongst the crew rejoiced as gravity's familiar embrace welcomed them back to the feet.

Whistling, Autumn strolled over to the other damaged power line. The connection to the bridge was redundant - except for this one node.Over her shoulder, she noticed a dark shadow creeping along the walkway just at the edge of darkness, she heard the skitter and the clicking of the impacting claws, saw the flicker of a cluster of yellow eyes.As long as it kept its distance, everything was excellent.

The same charge had blown the cable, and with tried motions, she proceeded to re-connect the wiring.A screen flickered on, with the recording of a young woman in a knitted viking helmet with knitted rusty beard appearing, and playfully mocking: "Did the evil Red Viking blow your precious cable? Well, he has something in store for you too!"

Drat.

Autumn had a brief moment to recoil before a blast sent her flying, her suit on fire, breath knocked out.Stop. Drop. Roll. Do not die.

It worked, but the wiring was a disaster. That would take some time... but hopefully, no more booby traps would join the fun. Diligently, she examined the entire wiring for other surprises before proceeding. Work, work. "Guys, this will take some time, but I'll manage."

The shadow lurked just around the corner, peeking whenever it thought she wasn't looking, its sibilant breaths in tune with the sizzling of Autumn's welder. Occasional flashes of light from behind it cast a long, predatory, spiked contour across the opposite wall.

***

Sunny half-dragged, half-carried the first mate to the infirmary; she was no weakling, but the girl was heavy. Good bone structure, some serious muscle. Thanks for turning on the gravity, Autumn!

A slipping could be heard between her steps and laboured breath, as if plastic was being dragged across the carpet. She shuddered when she felt the presence, waiting, looking. It was close. Out of the corner of her vision, she could make out a sleek serpentine shape, and four-eyed reptilian heads; the mantis-like razor blades slowly closed and opened, as if reminiscing about decapitating, mutilating and a hundred ways to inflict injury.It stayed close, a few yards, yet left Helia to pass.Then, the creature hovered in the infirmary's door, eying whatever she did. A shape passed the camera on the other side. Great, there were two.

Slowly, Helia placed Irina in the scanner, and let the metal ring run along the body. The threat emanating from the many-headed creature was almost palpable.As she took a blood sample, she could feel it drawing closer, hovering over her.Do not look, show no fear, do not quiver, don't get near.

Ever so slowly, she withdrew the needle, and placed one of the samples under the microscope, the other in the sequencer.Slick sounds made her aware of the beast's activity. It was licking the first mate clean. Excellent.

Shrugging, she turned back to the results. Fascinating.First of all, the blood - the woman's red blood cells were normal enough; her white blood cells showed amorphous organelle-rich macrophage-like types in addition to the usual crew. Helia saw them moving through the sample, briefly touching the other cells, ever restless. Whatever their purpose was?

The sequencer confirmed her assumptions - there were genetic sequences from at least four individuals present in the sample; strange that the chimeric body hasn't eaten itself apart yet. Most importantly, also abundant unknown sequences were detectable, bearing only low homology to Earth's organisms. Quite much DNA, actually. Her professional interest was piqued as she studied the tense creature behind her. Perhaps she should get a sample from one of the three dead critters?

Finally, the tomographic scan revealed the high bone density she had previously felt, along with discreet marks along the bones where they had, according to her estimate, been separated and re-joined. The rest was human - except for a long organ reaching from the head down the neck, through the mediastinum to the retroperitoneum, its borders ill-defined, telling of its thorough interconnection with the surrounding tissue.

***

Irina dreamed, her sleep distorted by the drugs in her system into a befuddled swirl of colors and sounds.

***

Sunny's suit computer beeped. Oxygen reserves at 33%? How fast has she been spending it?

***

Jerome fiddled with the wrist computer from the first mate's suit. Made in Arkona, solid piece of technology and rather robust - and the interface was in Russian. When he tried to plug it into his own computer, it immediately responded with hostile software and promptly replaced his screen saver with a seemingly never-ending stream of adorable kittens that were highly deficient in grammar, spelling and sentence structure. Huh. Luckily, he pulled the plug before anything worse could happen.

At least the suit repair kit was not booby-trapped, and soon, space-tight duct tape covered the rips and tears, melding with the suit's material to become one. A suit integrity test revealed he was good to go. A smiling kitten in a vacc suit was accompanied by the slogan: "Where does the astronaut hang out? A space bar."

Huh.

« Last Edit: April 17, 2014, 12:51:40 PM by EchoMirage »

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

"Uh...guys....awful lotta creepy crawlies all around right now..." Sunny hunched her shoulders as she tried not to freeze up and stare at the yuckies.

"So uh...This girl. Turns out I was right, big surprise right? Heh, uh anyways she's a real patchwork this one. I rather doubt that she'll be friendly to us, more likely that these creepazoids'll get another high powered and smart ally. Could also be that with this much diverse genetic material, she's schitzophrenic. But I dunno if that's good or bad for us. Uh...running out of air here as well, probably shouldn't be talking so much. Would be great if anyone of y'all could y'know...do something about that."

Sunny walked past her horrid overseer, with a lighthearted salute and a rictusy smile she went to bend down by some of the corpses. Discreetly, she took a sample for analysis, looking over her shoulder hoping not to anger the freakshow. (19:52:26) Minion: Gossamer rolls 1d100 and gets 28. for the analysis of the sample.

To Sunny's wonder, the corpses were gone, just the cabin where they had found the diary laid in ruin from the Captain's passing.But then, she did not exactly need a hectoliter of blood for her analysis - the amount in a crack in the floor more than sufficed.

The many-headed creature was gone, just its secretions were smeared across the room. Irina lay there, unguarded.Sunny shrugged, and impatiently placed the sample in the sequencer.Hard to imagine that once, the Human Genome Project - the effort to sequence exactly that - took some fifteen years, and cooperation across a planet.

She then gazed as the computer began to sputter out data, identifying passages of euchromatin, heterochromatin, probable introns, exons and splicing sites, promoter sequences, the DNA's modifications and associated proteins, and it analyzed on and on.Her brow furrowed - this was a whole lot of DNA. Of course, if the beasts were poikilotherm, a larger extent of the genome was expected to code for proteins that were operational at various temperatures. Still, the amount of information was excessive. Especially given that according to the DNA's methylation state, the critter wasn't even using much of the euchromatin.

Curious.

"Where am I?" a female voice spoke, her words slightly slurred.

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

Sunny slowly turned around. Oh crud. Apparently the tranq didn't last very long on her physiology, she had been afraid of that. She fumbled with the internal comm. "Uh, guys. She's awake. Help." She flicked over to external comms. "Uhm hellooo! Nice. To. Meet. You. You are on a...shiiiip." Sunny did a flying motion with her arm. "We're all friends here so just relax." Sunny pasted on a smile and fiddled with her needle-gun behind her back, any sudden movements and a poison dart would be lodged in the girl's skull.

Autumn gave a nod of approval at Quans aid, Sunny's information on the com making her pause for a moment.

"Good, see if she knows the override code for the shuttle bay, without it none of us are going anywhere anytime soon, as for your air, just open your helmet, my suits been compromised so I've been breathing this foul drek for a while now and I'm not dead, yet, although I will need your services after this repair work is done." She told Sunny after a moments consideration.

"Come on Quan the sooner we get this done the sooner you can go back to piloting."

"I am vaguely aware that I am located on a ship, thanks. From the looks of the infirmary, it might even be my Lilarcor."The nude female stretched, bundles of muscles dancing under her skin. She shook her head, looked around bleary-eyed."Regardless of the ship, I think it would be proper decorum to provide me with something to cover my shame" she added with a distinguished measure of bashfulness, cupping her breasts and crossing her legs meanwhile.

"If your presence here indicates that you are a doctor, could you perchance part with a little medicine? My head hurts somewhat fierce."She forced out a smile."I assume you are new on the ship? If so, the pleasure is mine: Irina Ivanovova, first mate."

Helia was well aware of the rapidly improving articulation of the first mate's speech. She studied her captive as she laid back, waiting for clothes. There was no doubt, the sedatives had worn off, and the woman was in full control of her faculties.It was natural that the woman studied her surroundings, but she had focused on the roof longer. What could be so interesting up there?

Helia suppressed the urge to look, and instead flashed a girlish smile.One of the tilted glass panes told her all she needed to - the many-headed reptilian creature was concealed amongst the rafters, silent as the emptiness of space, observing the happening below.

A distant hum told of further ship systems coming online.

« Last Edit: April 21, 2014, 03:42:11 PM by EchoMirage »

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

Sunny hesitated for a while, then she pushed some buttons on her collar and disconnected the air hose, she lifted the helmet clear off her head and took some cautious breaths, she felt strange for a while, almost like vertigo, but it quickly passed.

"Oh. Pardon me, wasn't really sure about your cognitive functions. Ehm, yes. There's a few of us that have joined up... You don't really look like the rest a the crew though, what's your designation? Oh and I was asked to ask you if you know any override codes for the shuttle bay, or perhaps know of a crew member who does? The repairs we were ordered by the captain to perform requires them you see. Oh and sure, I can give you something."

Sunny contemplated giving her a sedative, but with the unwanted visitor in the ceiling that probably wouldn't fly so she settled for some normal aspirins. She didn't trust the lady one bit, but maybe she wasn't all bad.... Hopefully.

"I'm Helia, but you can call me Sunny if you like." She said and handed her the medecine. That's right, keep up the decorum...

"Carry on Quan" Autumn told him, turning to focus her attention on Jerome, greeting his offer with a quick nod.

"Agreed, let me shrug out of this suit, it'll be easier to treat the injuries without it in the way." She told him, quickly unzipping the blackened and ripped material, the sudden chill of the air against her bare fur both refreshing and unsettling at the same time. "My bones have been laced with carbon fiber and I have some muscle augmentation and the blood sticks to the fur so it looks worse than it is." She offered by way of awkward explanation, extending her hind leg and arm for treatment.

"The suits a lost cause after the fire, I'll need to find a new one, or EVA in a rescue bubble, but that's a last resort, hopefully our new patient in med lab will be able to offer some aid in bypassing the lock out."

Jerome managed to clean Autumn's wounds and to close them with fibrin glue, and to bind them with gauze.The beating she took from the explosion would take longer to recover; there was nothing to do about it now.Autumn recovers 1 health level.

***

Helia's head tendrils unfurled, finally free, their cilia probing the air. They danced akin to unfurling coral, and finally, she had her full complement of senses.She could sense Irina's pheromones - certainly, the woman was used to getting her way, and her confidence filled the air around her, in a reassuring, non-aggressive way though. The hydra above had its characteristic air as well, one akin to pack predators - a beta, though.

As she handed her the medicine, Irina placed her palm against Helia's in an universal gesture of contact.

"Helia. I know what happened. I know that many of the crew - if not all - are dead."She had died herself - twice."I do have the launch codes for the emergency pods, certainly. Though last I remember, the saboteur disabled them. He intended us all to die - how kind. If I knew who it was, I would be able to find clues to override it, certainly."

She smiled in an honest, reassuring way, and caught Helia's gaze with hers. One eye was green, the other blue."I do have a favor to ask in return, though - as you will understand.""There are thirteen... no, twelve children on board, scared and leaderless. Of the Thinkers, one may be alive, and his life is doubly precious. I need you to help them."Irina clasped Sunny's hand."Please."

Sunny's response was interrupted by a distant distracted girly voice emanating from the ship intercom: "I'll show you, buggers..."

« Last Edit: April 22, 2014, 02:17:58 PM by EchoMirage »

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

Sunny almost got lost in that touch. If she didn't know as much as she did about pheromones and mind melding she might have trusted the girl completely after that. She couldn't help but feeling some lingering kinship though, but she tried her d**nedest not to let it cloud her judgement.

"Uh. When you say the crew, are you talking about the original crew or the present one? This saboteur was he also part of your crew?"

-

Quote

I'll show you, buggers...

"...Anyone you know?" She asked Irina.

"Anyways uh, of course, I'll do everything I can to help the children." Sunny smiled weakly but wondered, children or more monsters? She made sure to let go of Irina's hand and guarded her mind well before that thought though, just in case. She started tapping on her wrist PDA, a short message. (13 more on this ship, possibly more like these ones. We need to act soon if at all)

Autumn quick struggled back into her ruined vacumn suit, while it wouldn't protect against depressurization it still provided a degree of armor and the communications and sensors functioned, for the most part anyway.

"Sunny ask your patient about the Red Viking, it's part of the lockout, the person who initiated it I think." She said over the com, looking over to see how well Quan had gotten with the final bypasses during her brief respite from repair work.

The AI's voice interjected in his question in the same dispassionate manner it had recounted the emergencies and damaged systems: "Bridge online. Emergency: biohazard - code red.Captain Cherenkov not located.Bridge lockdown terminated."

The girl on the comm finally answered, triumphantly so."I am your worst nightmare, d**ned critters. Thought you could fool me by imitating the human voice? Saw you rip off the captain's head and use it like a puppet. Everybody's dead - but you're gonna be dead soon too. I'll flush you like a rotten turd!"

A sire sounded, the current alarm replaced with a higher-intensity one. Paths flashed up along the floors, presumably to direct people somewhere.

"Taste space, xenos."

A faint beep echoed from the ship intercom, followed by the AI again."Emergency vacuum cleansing in 9:59. Proceed to safe zones."With a hissing sound, air began to drain into the vents, creating a noticeable draft.

Irina noted glumly: "Yes, that's Cornelia, one of ours. A newbie - but I see she learns quickly."

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

"Jerome, get to the bridge and make her stop, I'll attempt to run a bypass here and abort the purge!" Autumn barked the order as she leaped to the interface, her claws flying over the keys. "Sunny, see if you and our new arrival can talk her down, or at least keep her distracted until Jerome can force her hand!"

Come on, emergency abort sequence should be in here somewhere, or at least kill the power to the life support long enough to reset the system and disable bridge controls!

She pawed at the keyboard quickly, struggling to keep her composure and ignore the hiss of escaping air, hoping her barked orders would be obeyed without argument, the time for sorting out the chain of command was after the danger, when everyone was back on board the prize enjoying a well earned drink in the cafeteria.

Focus, ignore the pressure drop, ignore the pain with every breath, focus on getting past the moment, on the future.

Jerome was moving even as Autumn barked, heh, her orders. "Fill the hole with foam if you can find any!" he said as he headed for the bridge. He had the rocket rifle out - if the door was holed, she might have to rethink her plan.. Unless she had an intact suit, of course.

Sunny put her helmet back on and closed the door to med-bay, she leaned on the intercomm button. "Cornelia, we're not all xenos here, you don't have to do this!" She glanced at Irina, she wasn't sure what more she could say without implicating herself and the others.

"If there's a terminal nearby that's still connected then I should be able to enter the override code to stop this!" That is, if we're not completely locked out, with only the bridge having full control she thought darkly to herself. Best not to waste any time with such thoughts though.

"Failing that, which we won't!" she added in a clipped tone, "We shall have to manually override the escape pods"

And I should probably get something to wear, quickly She got up and walked across to one of the Infirmary's clothing lockers, picking out a pair of practical tight pants and a t-shirt with the badly faded words Si vis pacem across the chest.

She then strode over to the intercom next to the Med-bay doors and opened up: "Cornelia, this is First Mate Ivanovova, cancel the emergency venting and stand down. That is an order!"

"I saw them kill you, Irina!" the girl on the other side of the comm screamed, anger unconcealed."So, whatever is wearing your face now, I will take a delight in flushing you!"

She likewise laughed at Helia's plea for mercy."You're not even trying, d**ned bugs!""Or whatever the frag you are."

Irina tapped her code repeatedly into the local control console. "Override rejected." flashed across the screen.That d**ned bastard Cherenkov had lied to them, and reserved the option to flush them all for himself, on his cozy bridge, behind his armored airlock!She'd bet that the most important controls were responsive to his personal codes, retina or whatever.Good riddance, you scum.

The escape pod launch bay was likewise non-responsive - though this time, a laughing girl in a crocheted viking helmet and fake ruddy beard repeated a mantra on the screen: Gods, monsters and men - all die together in the end.Who was it? That bastard Erika! Irina knew there was something fishy about the wench, always doodling and writing and reading old hardcover books.

Autumn plugged her wrist comp into the console, and attempted a manual override. True to Irina's findings, the bridge had absolute authority over the ship, but what she managed to do was to insert a self-loading repeating subroutine, which re-set the ventilation incessantly, preventing it from attaining maximum pull.

8:15

It wasn't helping too much.

With a heavy heart, she descended one floor, and pried open the panel housing the life support feed. "Here goes nothing!" she thought as she tore the cables out. A distant hum fell silent as the compressors and filters and air recyclers gave out.The air would not drain - until the crazy wench found a way to purge the ship hard, by opening all airlocks without salvaging the air first.

The countdown continued, and the AI recounted in its cold, mocking voice.

6:45

Everybody has the time to move his character where he intended to go, in the 3:15 minutes that passed.

« Last Edit: April 23, 2014, 05:01:53 PM by EchoMirage »

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

"I wouldn't count on it Jerome, the AI seems to be functioning at minimal capacity, I'll give it a shot though, good thinking!" Autumn barked back a reply, heading over to the terminal and attempting to interface with the A.I.

"A mentally unstable crew member on the bridge is attempting to purge atmosphere, cancel purge and lock out all bridge controls until further notice!" She commanded the A.I, hoping such a simplistic and direct order would be obeyed more readily than anything more convoluted.

"Computer, what is the nature of the lockout preventing access to the hangar bay?" She phrased the question carefully, hoping the lockout was simply a few sealed hatch ways and not a depressurized hangar or active security counter measures, better to find out now before they had to do things the hard way in a harry.